【推荐1】Directions, luggage delivery, tasty food. Those are some of the things we’ve seen robots offering at the media center of Beijing Winter Olympics. And most of the robots we’ve seen here aren’t made to look human. Instead, they present a wide range of looks.

Two of the most advanced robots regularly operate in crowded space. One greets visitors, answers questions and offers to guide people through the crowds. Another one cleans the carpeted hallways of the main press center. It speaks to passersby in a woman’s voice. It seems to be speaking English. But we can make it out well, because it also plays joyful music while its two front brushes are clearing dust and dirt like a street-sweeper.

Don’t assume these robots work all hours just because they’re robots. They have carefully managed schedules. For example, the snack robots just go around the media center for about 15 minutes every hour—usually only between noon and 17:00.

Another kind of robots helps out with logistics(物流) at the media center. These robots can carry up to 300 kilograms of goods, move freely along the relatively empty halls and automatically(自动地) recharge themselves. They send unique codes through text messages to the receivers when the delivery has arrived. Then they can pick up the goods with the codes.

There are even COVID-fighting robots, which move around pre-programmed areas spreading chemicals. Food ordering, making and serving in the dining room are fully automatic too. Reporters from around the world can enjoy various food options here.

In short, robots play an outstanding role in the Beijing Winter Olympics. But the most important goal is to reduce direct contact(接触) between people.

1. What can the robots do according to paragraph 2?

A．Sing and dance at the entrance.	B．Guide people in crowded areas.
C．Cook and serve in the dining room.	D．Deliver goods and recharge automatically.

2. What can we know about the snack robots?

A．They look like street-sweepers.	B．They show up every 15 minutes.
C．They cook food on site for the guests.	D．They have pre-programmed schedules.

3. What is the main purpose of using robots at the media center?

A．To reduce direct human contact.	B．To promote made-in-China robots.
C．To meet the challenge of labor shortage.	D．To test the skill of AI technologies.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．A Wonderful Day at 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics

B．Helpful Robots at Beijing Winter Olympics Media Center

C．Robots’ Important Roles at 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics

D．A Unique Robot Show at Beijing Winter Olympics Media Center

【推荐2】When Param Jaggi was five years old, he had a passion to take things apart to see what was inside. He started with toys and even broke a computer, which made his parents not too pleased. As he got older, he shifted from breaking things to building things, which greatly comforted his parents. In middle school, he started working on projects in his kitchen laboratory, and his first project was making biofuels.

Although Jaggi’s parents initially thought his experiments were just a boyhood fancy, he remained determined to make a difference to the environment. Eventually, his parents came around and started supporting his dreams. Jaggi’s interest continued as he grew up, but he focused more on solving real problems, especially those related to the environment.

At 17, Jaggi went beyond his school projects and co-founded Ecoviate, a company that uses technology to solve everyday energy and environmental problems. He planned to transform people’s idea that going green is expensive, by making available a series of affordable products that are easy to use. Through Ecoviate, he designed products that could contribute to a greener future. One of his notable inventions was the “CO2ube”, a device that could reduce carbon emissions, and it’s available to many people at low prices.

Young Jaggi, now a third-grade college student studying engineering and economics, has become a famous eco-innovator and his company is developing promisingly. However, Jaggi’s vision to save the environment goes beyond creating products. He plans to launch an online platform through Ecoviate, which will encourage young students interested in science and technology to get actively involved in innovation and invention. Students can submit a science project online, and talk about the help that they need to make the project a reality.

1. What can we learn about Jaggi?

A．He dreamed to be an engineer.	B．He was curious by nature.
C．He always annoyed his parents.	D．He was addicted to playing toys.

2. Which of the following can best replace the underlined part “came around” in Paragraph 2?

A．Walked around.	B．Paid a visit.
C．Changed their minds.	D．Become conscious.

3. What drove Jaggi to develop affordable and user-friendly products?

A．His love for greener devices.	B．His pursuit of academic career.
C．His hope to boost green industry.	D．His desire to make a difference.

4. Why does Jaggie plan to launch an online platform?

A．To empower young inventors.	B．To promote smart products.
C．To provide eco-themed courses.	D．To offer environmentalists funds.

【推荐2】In 1916, two girls of wealthy families, best friends from Auburn, N. Y. — Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood — traveled to a settlement in the Rocky Mountains to teach in a one-room schoolhouse. The girls had gone to Smith College. They wore expensive clothes. So for them to move to Elkhead, Colo. to instruct the children whose shoes were held together with string was a surprise. Their stay in Elkhead is the subject of Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West by Dorothy Wickenden, who is a magazine editor and Dorothy Woodruff’s granddaughter.

Why did they go then? Well, they wanted to do something useful. Soon, however, they realized what they had undertaken.

They moved in with a local family, the Harrisons, and, like them, had little privacy, rare baths, and a blanket of snow on their quilt when they woke up in the morning. Some mornings, Rosamond and Dorothy would arrive at the schoolhouse to find the children weeping from the cold. In spring, the snow was replaced by mud over ice.

In Wickenden’s book, she expanded on the history of the West and also on feminism, which of course influenced the girls’ decision to go to Elkhead. A hair-raising section concerns the building of the railroads, which entailed (牵涉) drilling through the Rockies, often in blinding snowstorms. The book ends with Rosamond and Dorothy’s return to Auburn.

Wickenden is a very good storyteller. The sweep of the land and the stoicism (坚忍) of the people move her to some beautiful writing. Here is a picture of Dorothy Woodruff, on her horse, looking down from a hill top: “When the sun slipped behind the mountains, it shed a rosy glow all around them. Then a full moon rose. The snow was marked only by small animals: foxes, coyotes, mice, and varying hares, which turned white in the winter.”

1. What can we learn about the girls from paragraph 3?

A．They enjoyed much respect.

B．They had a room with a bathtub.

C．They lived with the local kids.

D．They suffered severe hardships.

2. Which part of Wickenden’s writing is hair-raising?

A．The extreme climate of Auburn.

B．The living conditions in Elkhead.

C．The railroad building in the Rockies.

D．The natural beauty of the West.

【推荐3】My memories of my father are divided into parts and shares. Alive, and then dead. Healthy, and then helpless. And further back in time, the first and most division: Present and then absent; loving, and then indifferent.

He used to be a good writer and loving father. When I was a 16-year-old girl, he was fired from his company, a public, gossip-based dismissal that he would spend decades refusing responsibility for. This was the first crack that divided my relationship with him into poles of before and after. To escape his shame, he pushed away those who reminded him of it, first divorcing my mother, then alienating my sister and I.

As an adult, my relationship with my father was one of low expectations and high boundaries. He spent most of his time travelling. But when he died of heart failure in August, I was knocked off balance by the weight of the blow. I thought, after years of setting up delicate fences around our relationship, that I had already begun letting go. His death delivered a realization: despite years of analyzing his complicated love for me, there were pieces of my father I never understood—until I found my father’s notebooks in his cupboard.

In the notebooks, he often collected documentation: train tickets from Rome or a photograph of San Francisco’s Prescott Hotel. But what he was also doing was offering fatherly guidance, the kind I could only receive after he died. His life, in which what he had was never quite enough, was eventually exposed. In his final decade, he realized he had built a castle for himself upon sand and regret. Now in his entries, I hear his voice. “Debaleh,” I hear him say, using his pet name for me, “learn from my mistakes.”

I read these pages among my dad’s clothes, and wept. I hadn’t known that my father, too, lived with that familiar ache for new horizons in his heart, the one that can only be comforted by traveling.

1. Why did the author’s father keep away from his family?

A．They weren’t responsible members.	B．He didn’t get on well with his wife.
C．Their presence recalled his sad experience.	D．They talked behind others’ backs everywhere.

2. What advice did the author’s father give her?

A．Writing a journal carefully.	B．Travelling more for relaxation.
C．Avoiding following in his footsteps.	D．Obeying father’s guidance thoroughly.

3. What made the author end up crying?

A．Finding her father’s clothes.	B．Getting to know her late father.
C．Failing to look for new horizons.	D．Knowing her father’s heart disease.

【推荐1】Characteristics of an excellent scientist

The dictionary defines a scientist as a person having professional knowledge on one or more sciences, especially natural science or physical science.    1     Let’s look at some characteristics of an excellent scientist.

Curiosity

An excellent scientist must be very curious about things. Scientists such as Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse discovered things mainly because they wanted to know how things work.    2    

Patience

Becoming a scientist takes a long time.     3     Even if you think you have received some education on science, you still have a lot of scientific research to do. If you’re an instant-gratification type of person, this may not be the best choice for you.

Ethical (道德的) qualities

In order to truly discover and use knowledge for the greater good, a scientist must have a desire to improve people’s life as well as the environment, since they are linked and they can affect one another in the long run.     4     Sticking to an old belief contradicted with evidence is dishonest. However, that belief shouldn’t be changed without powerful evidence.

Working habits

    5    He/She can work well alone or in groups, depending on what’s needed and also needs to communicate thoughts on paper and verbally. Networking connects him/her with colleagues working on similar projects where he/she may discover something new.

A．To make discoveries, you have to think differently.

B．There are very few jobs that take longer than this one.

C．It also defines a scientist as someone who uses scientific methods.

D．A scientist must report findings honestly regardless of personal interests or public opinion.

E．One of the main places that many scientists work in is the research laboratory.

F．An excellent scientist even takes notes of the smallest observation and keeps it in mind.

G．Without a drive to ask questions or even wonder, a scientist will never get to the first stage of the scientific process.

【推荐2】Michael Faraday was the son of a blacksmith. There were four children in his family and, with his father often ill and unable to work, Michael Faraday had to earn his living from an early age. This meant little or no schooling. However, the family belonged to a religious group, and Faraday learnt to read and write at Sunday School.

When he was only fourteen, Faraday found a job as a bookbinder (装订工). He used to read the books he was given to bind and he became very interested in the scientific books, particularly the ones about electricity. His interest soon took a practical path and he began conducting his own experiments. These were very basic because Faraday had to make all of his equipment himself. However, he was very careful and kept a clear written record of all his findings.

One day he was given an entrance ticket to the Royal Institute chemistry lecture, given by Humphry Davy. Determined to work for this great scientist, he sent Davy a job application and included his laboratory reports on the experiments he had carried out. In 1813 Davy offered Faraday a job as one of his laboratory assistants. Faraday learnt quickly and soon was recognized as a very able analytical chemist. Later he went to work at the Royal Institute.

Michael Faraday was, perhaps, the greatest practical scientist of the 19th century. As a chemist, he discovered the benzene (苯), which is now the focal point of chemical study. He also proved the relationship between electricity and chemical bonding (化学键). As a physicist, he invented the dynamo, which led to the later invention of the electric motor. He also discovered the effect of magnetism (磁) on light rays.

1. Why did Faraday attend Sunday School?

A．He had to work for a bookbinder at weekdays.

B．He hoped to read many of the scientific books there.

C．He would like to learn religious knowledge.

D．His family couldn’t afford his normal school education.

2. When working as a bookbinder, Faraday ______.

A．published his great findings on electricity	B．made his own equipment for his experiments
C．read many books by Humphry Davy	D．gained his fame as a practical scientist

3. In order to get a chance to work for Davy, Faraday ______.

A．bought tickets to attend Davy’s lecture	B．sent his experiment reports to Davy
C．went to the Royal Institute to visit Davy	D．offered to do laboratory work for free

4. Which of the following is the right order of Faraday’s life?
a．A laboratory assistant.                         b．A student of Sunday School.
c．A bookbinder.                                      d．An analytical chemist.

A．a­b­c­d

B．b­c­d­a

C．b­c­a­d

D．c­b­a­d